DEAD CITY: A ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

CHAPTER 9 ~ MIDNIGHT REQUISITION

The evening of July 20th, 2023, settled over the ruined skyline of Makati City like a heavy and suffocating blanket of dark ash.

Inside the luxurious command center of the secured penthouse, the atmosphere was surprisingly calm and meticulously organized. The massive space was currently illuminated entirely by the soft tactical red lights of military flashlights and the steady blue glow of the System interface hovering quietly in the center of the living room. Riccardo sat heavily at the massive marble kitchen island while staring blankly at an olive-green plastic pouch resting on the counter in front of him. He was completely exhausted down to his very marrow, but his mind was racing far too fast to allow for any actual sleep.

A tall and heavily scarred soldier named Marco stood on the opposite side of the marble island. Marco was a highly experienced urban warfare specialist pulled directly from the massive bulk troop deployment earlier that afternoon, and Riccardo had officially appointed him as his tactical deputy to help Sergeant Hayes efficiently manage their newly established company of over a hundred armed men.

"You really need to activate the chemical heater, sir," Marco instructed patiently while pointing a gloved finger at the plastic pouch. "You simply tear off the top of the outer bag, add a very small amount of bottled water up to the printed fill line, and then carefully slide the main food packet directly inside. The chemical reaction will generate a massive amount of heat very quickly, so you need to make sure you do not burn your fingers when you handle it."

Riccardo silently followed the detailed instructions. He ripped the thick plastic open, poured in a splash of purified water, and watched in mild fascination as the chemical sleeve immediately began to aggressively bubble and emit a thin trail of hot steam.

"This is exactly my very first time eating a Meal Ready-to-Eat," Riccardo noted quietly while leaning back in his tall chair. "I honestly never thought I would be sitting inside a stolen luxury penthouse eating military field rations while a zombie apocalypse raged completely out of control outside the windows."

"They are specifically designed for maximum caloric density rather than actual culinary enjoyment, sir," Marco replied with a perfectly straight face. "The menu item you currently have is the chili macaroni variant, and it is generally considered to be one of the vastly superior options available in the standard supply box. It will provide your body with the sustained energy you desperately need to function."

Riccardo eventually pulled the steaming pouch out of the heater, tore the top open, and used a brown plastic spoon to take his very first bite. The meal was incredibly salty and possessed a slightly metallic aftertaste, but it was warm and filling. However, the heavy food felt exactly like dry ash sitting in his mouth because his distracted mind was completely consumed by a profound and paralyzing concern for his younger sister.

Lucia was currently trapped inside Classroom 2-C at the Technological Engineering Institute in Quezon City alongside ten of her terrified classmates. She had confidently assured him over their last phone call that they had successfully barricaded the heavy wooden door with countless desks and metal chairs, but that fragile physical barrier provided Riccardo with absolutely zero genuine comfort.

He had spent the last three hours staring out the massive floor-to-ceiling windows at the burning metropolitan grid while thinking intensely about the dark reality of human nature. He had been a political science student for years, and he understood perfectly well how incredibly thin the fragile veneer of civilized society truly was. He knew exactly what happened when terrified and desperate people were suddenly stripped of all external authority and completely isolated in a highly stressful survival situation. Furthermore, he distinctly remembered exactly how cruel and unpredictable high school teenagers could be even on a completely normal day.

The terrifying monsters mindlessly roaming the bloodstained streets outside the school were highly predictable predators driven entirely by basic biological hunger, but the trapped humans waiting inside that dark classroom were vastly more dangerous because they were driven by complex fear, desperate selfishness, and sudden unchecked arrogance. He was absolutely terrified that the greatest immediate threat to his sister's life was not going to violently break down the barricaded door, but rather it was actively breathing right beside her in the suffocating darkness.

Riccardo suddenly dropped his plastic spoon onto the marble counter and pushed the half-eaten meal completely away from him.

"I absolutely cannot wait until the sun comes up tomorrow morning," he announced with absolute and unwavering certainty.

Marco immediately straightened his posture and looked at him with sharp professional interest. "We previously established a firm operational plan to launch the rescue mission at first light, sir. The streets are exponentially more dangerous in the dark."

"I am completely aware of the elevated tactical risks, Marco, but I simply do not care anymore." Riccardo stood up from the tall chair and aggressively pulled up the glowing System interface with a sharp swipe of his hand. "We are officially changing the operational timeline right now, so I need you to gather Sergeant Hayes and our intelligence analyst immediately. We are launching a highly targeted midnight rescue operation."

Exactly two minutes later, Hayes and a female intelligence analyst named Reeves joined Riccardo and Marco around the large kitchen island. Reeves quickly set up her ruggedized laptop and seamlessly projected a highly detailed digital map of the entire Quezon City educational district directly onto the flat kitchen wall.

"The primary target location is the Technological Engineering Institute University," Riccardo explained while pointing firmly at a massive cluster of academic buildings displayed on the glowing map. "My sister is specifically located on the second floor of the main administrative building in Classroom 2-C. We need to successfully navigate completely through the ruined city, securely breach the school perimeter, locate the exact classroom, and safely extract eleven teenage civilians without getting them killed in the process."

Marco carefully studied the projected map with a deeply critical eye before offering his tactical assessment. "A night operation of this specific magnitude requires completely different parameters than our standard daytime sweeps, sir. The overall visibility out there is going to be incredibly poor, and the standard infected variants are significantly more active in the cooler temperatures of the evening. If we attempt to march a massive column of standard combat infantry directly down the main arterial roads right now, we are going to inevitably attract a massive horde that will completely overwhelm our defensive positions before we even reach the university campus."

"Marco is entirely correct in his tactical evaluation," Hayes agreed in a grave tone. "Standard infantry units are simply too loud and far too heavy for a highly stealthy extraction mission in total darkness. We absolutely cannot fight a prolonged war of attrition in the middle of the night while trying to protect that many fragile civilian assets."

"We are not going to fight a prolonged war of attrition," Riccardo clarified as he stared intensely at his glowing digital interface. "We are going to execute a highly precise and completely surgical strike using vastly superior assets. I currently have exactly 4,995,140 gold coins sitting idle in my digital bank account, and I fully intend to spend whatever is necessary to guarantee our success tonight."

He confidently navigated directly past the standard troop deployment menus and aggressively opened the Advanced Troop Shop that he had successfully unlocked earlier that afternoon. He bypassed the basic infantry, the specialized support units, and the standard vehicular crews until he finally reached a completely new and highly exclusive section designated entirely for elite military assets.

The digital heading proudly read: [ SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCE: DELTA TIER ]

Riccardo carefully read the highly detailed system description associated with these premium units. The manual proudly explained that Delta Tier operatives were the absolute pinnacle of human combat effectiveness available within the System. They possessed completely maximized physical attributes, highly advanced stealth capabilities, flawless marksmanship, and unparalleled expertise in navigating complex urban combat scenarios under the absolute worst possible conditions. They were entirely specifically designed to execute impossible missions precisely like the one he was currently planning.

However, their premium elite status came with an absolutely staggering financial cost. Each individual Delta Force operative cost exactly fifty thousand gold coins to purchase.

Riccardo did not even hesitate for a single fraction of a second. He instantly selected the maximum recommended squad size and firmly tapped the digital confirmation button to permanently deduct exactly five hundred thousand gold coins from his massive fortune.

"I just purchased us a specialized solution to our noise and visibility problems," Riccardo announced quietly to his waiting command staff.

The air inside the massive luxury penthouse suddenly dropped several degrees in temperature as the physical materialization process initiated.

The ten elite operatives did not simply appear in the same abrupt manner as the standard infantry troops had done earlier that day. Instead, they seemed to smoothly step directly out of the deepest shadows naturally filling the corners of the dark room. They moved with an incredibly eerie and absolute silence that instantly made the hairs on the back of Riccardo's neck stand straight up in primal alarm.

The Delta Force squad was terrifyingly beautiful in their lethal perfection. They were entirely clad in highly advanced adaptive black multicam uniforms that seemed to actively absorb the ambient light around them. Every single operative wore a lightweight ballistic helmet equipped with a complex array of panoramic night vision goggles known as GPNVG-18s, which featured four distinct glowing lenses that gave them the horrifying appearance of predatory mechanical spiders. They were heavily armed with highly customized MK18 assault rifles that featured fully integrated suppressors, advanced infrared laser designators, and specialized thermal combat optics.

There were absolutely no identifying name tapes printed anywhere on their dark uniforms, and they wore thick black balaclavas completely covering their faces below their specialized goggles to ensure total anonymity.

The operative standing at the very front of the terrifying formation smoothly stepped forward and completely bypassed the standard military salute. He simply nodded his helmeted head exactly once in Riccardo's direction with an aura of absolute and total confidence.

"I am designated as Captain Vance, and this is officially Echo Actual," the elite leader introduced himself in a deep voice that was heavily modulated and completely devoid of any recognizable emotion. "We are fully online, securely integrated into the local command structure, and entirely ready to execute your primary objective, sir."

Riccardo silently looked at the ten incredibly lethal phantoms currently standing perfectly still in his living room, and a profound wave of genuine relief finally washed completely over his exhausted body. These were absolutely not standard soldiers intended for holding defensive positions or engaging in chaotic street battles. These highly specialized men were absolute professional killers explicitly designed to move invisibly through the deepest darkness and violently eliminate any threats before the enemy even realized they were actively under attack. They instilled an immediate and overwhelming sense of absolute confidence in his desperate plan.

"It is a genuine pleasure to have you securely on our side, Captain," Riccardo greeted him respectfully. "We have an extremely high-value rescue target currently located roughly ten kilometers from our current position, and we are going to securely extract her tonight completely under the cover of absolute darkness."

"We excel entirely in the dark, sir," Captain Vance replied simply.

Riccardo immediately turned his full attention back to the glowing digital shop interface. If he was going to actively lead a highly elite special operations team directly into a ruined city at midnight, he absolutely needed to properly equip himself to survive the journey.

He rapidly navigated over to the newly unlocked tiers of the weapon and equipment shop. He confidently purchased a customized set of lightweight stealth tactical gear designed to perfectly match the dark multicam aesthetic of his new elite squad. He also purchased a highly advanced set of panoramic night vision goggles for his own helmet and explicitly secured a premium acoustic suppressor attachment designed perfectly for his primary M4 carbine. The expensive new gear instantly materialized on his body, completely replacing his previously bulky standard infantry loadout with something vastly more streamlined and highly deadly.

He smoothly pulled the heavy charging handle on his newly suppressed carbine to chamber a fresh round, and the sharp metallic click of the weapon echoing through the quiet kitchen felt incredibly satisfying in his hands.

"Listen closely, because this is exactly how we are going to play this," Riccardo commanded while stepping back to the center of the room and projecting his voice so that his entire command staff could clearly hear him. "Sergeant Hayes, you are officially holding this permanent base of operations alongside the vast majority of our standard infantry forces. Your primary objective is to keep this entire building completely secure and ensure that absolutely no harm comes to any of the civilians we extracted earlier today. You will continuously monitor our progress via the encrypted radio channels, but you are absolutely not to deploy any rescue forces to our position unless I explicitly issue a distress signal."

"That is completely understood, sir," Hayes confirmed with a sharp nod of his head. "We will absolutely hold this fortress until you return."

Riccardo then turned his attention directly to his newly appointed deputy. "Marco, you are officially coming with me tonight. You have extensive urban combat experience that I desperately need, and you will directly coordinate our tactical movements alongside Captain Vance to ensure we maintain absolute operational security."

"It would be my genuine honor to accompany you into the field, sir," Marco responded while efficiently checking the ammunition load securely locked inside his own suppressed weapon.

Riccardo finally looked directly at Captain Vance and the nine silent phantoms standing behind him. "Echo Actual will serve as our primary vanguard and our dedicated close protection detail. We will completely avoid all major roads and heavily populated intersections whenever possible, and we will absolutely prioritize total stealth over active engagement. If we are completely forced to eliminate any targets blocking our path, we will strictly utilize suppressed weapons and lethal hand-to-hand combat techniques to ensure we do not alert the surrounding area to our presence."

"We will pave a completely silent road directly to your target, sir," Captain Vance assured him.

Riccardo checked the glowing mission timer currently hovering quietly in the upper corner of his digital vision. The countdown for locating Lucia was steadily ticking away, but he no longer felt the overwhelming and paralyzing panic that had gripped his chest just thirty minutes ago. He had successfully taken complete control of the terrifying situation, he had heavily invested in the absolute best military assets his bizarre system could provide, and he was finally actively moving forward to save his family.

"Reeves, I need you to securely d******d the primary extraction route directly into our tactical navigation displays," Riccardo ordered the intelligence analyst.

"The secure route has already been uploaded and synced to your personal HUD, sir," Reeves confirmed while typing rapidly on her computer.

Riccardo lowered his panoramic night vision goggles directly over his eyes. The massive luxury penthouse instantly vanished into pitch-black darkness before rapidly resolving into a highly detailed and brilliantly clear world painted entirely in crisp shades of bright emerald green. He could perfectly see the distinct thermal signatures radiating from his soldiers, and the secure digital navigation route was currently glowing brightly as a solid waypoint marker hovering directly in his field of vision.

"Alright," Riccardo announced in a cold and utterly determined voice as he walked purposefully toward the heavy glass doors leading directly out onto the massive open-air balcony of the penthouse. "Let us go get my sister back."

He pushed the heavy glass door open and confidently stepped out into the suffocating heat of the night air. The highly unpredictable dangers of a lawless and apocalyptic world were actively waiting for them in the dark streets below, but as Riccardo firmly gripped his suppressed rifle and listened to the completely silent footsteps of his elite strike team following closely behind him, he knew with absolute certainty that the terrifying monsters hunting in the darkness should be vastly more afraid of him.

The midnight operation had officially begun.